A quantitative evaluation of the impact of the edible mushroom industry on farmers' economic income satisfaction: evidence from a logistic regression model

Introduction Due to its relatively low input requirements, short production cycle, and rapid market responsiveness, the edible fungi industry has gradually emerged as an important agricultural sector for increasing farmers' income and optimizing the structure of agricultural earnings. With the continuous expansion and professionalization of the industry, it is necessary to systematically examine its impact on farmers' economic benefit evaluations from a micro-level perspective. Methods Based on questionnaire survey data collected in 2023 from 814 farm households in typical edible fungi cultivation areas of Hebei Province, this study takes farmers' economic return satisfaction as the outcome variable and constructs a binary choice model. Using a Logistic regression approach, the analysis investigates the effect of participation in the edible fungi industry on the probability of farmers attaining a satisfactory level of economic returns, while controlling for individual characteristics, household conditions, and production and management factors. Results The empirical results indicate that participation in the edible fungi industry significantly increases the likelihood that farmers enter a state of “satisfied or above” economic returns, with the overall model being statistically significant at the 5% level. Substantial heterogeneity is observed in the effects of individual characteristics on economic return satisfaction. Specifically, age (coefficient = 1.487, p < 0.05) and planting experience (coefficient = 0.785, p < 0.05) exert significant positive effects, whereas education level shows a significant negative effect (coefficient = −1.482, p < 0.01). With respect to production and management factors, oak wood area has a significant negative impact on economic return satisfaction (coefficient = −0.684, p < 0.01), while technical cost exhibits a significant positive effect (coefficient = 0.615, p < 0.05). Discussion Overall, the findings confirm that participation in the edible fungi industry plays a significantly positive role in enhancing farmers' economic return satisfaction, providing empirical evidence to support the formulation of targeted industrial support and technology promotion policies.